nquiringminds have signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate with NIST in a consortium in the project.

Network-layer onboarding of an IoT device is the provisioning of network credentials to that device. The current lack of trusted IoT device onboarding processes leaves many networks vulnerable to having unauthorized devices connect to them. It also leaves devices vulnerable to being taken over by networks that are not authorized to onboard them. This project will focus on approaches to trusted network-layer onboarding of IoT devices and lifecycle management of the devices. The consortium will build a trusted network-layer onboarding solution example using commercially available technology that will address a set of cybersecurity challenges aligned to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. This project will result in a freely available NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide.

nquiringminds will work with the NCCoE to provide recommended practices for performing trusted network-layer onboarding, which will aid in the implementation and use of trusted onboarding solutions for IoT devices at scale. The project will result in a publicly available NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide in the Special Publication 1800 series, a detailed guide describing the practical steps needed to implement the cybersecurity reference designs.